


Nefarious Device

by Basingstoke



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-15
Updated: 2005-07-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 15:30:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Basingstoke/pseuds/Basingstoke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For the "Getting a Sense of Cliches" challenge. Thanks to elynross for the beta!</p>
    </blockquote>





	Nefarious Device

**Author's Note:**

> For the "Getting a Sense of Cliches" challenge. Thanks to elynross for the beta!

Jim folded his arms and leaned against the wall, listening.

"What?" Blair asked.

"Shh."

"Basically, my question is if I need to put pants on," Blair said. He was sitting on the floor in his boxer shorts, folding laundry.

"No. Now shh." He concentrated, listening to his building, focused on the whirring: strange, mechanical, rhythmic. Then he blushed and stopped listening. "Never mind," he said.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Oh, this has to be good." Blair grinned up at him, one hand full of socks.

"_Nothing_. There are things you shouldn't listen to, even if you can," Jim said.

"You eavesdropped on the neighbors, didn't you?"

Jim was stoically silent.

"You dog," Blair said.

"Look," Jim said, "it wasn't a human sound, it was a mechanical sound, one I've never heard before," and Blair jerked up onto his knees.

"You eavesdropped on the woman downstairs and her vibrator?" Blair shook with silent laughter; Jim gripped his biceps and glared as Blair threw a sock at him. "You low-down dirty _dog_," Blair said.

"It could have been a bomb," Jim said.

"Ooh, baby, do me nuclear-style!"

Jim threw the sock back at Blair as Blair wiggled his underwear-clad ass.

* * *

They were hanging out on the balcony with beers, leaning on their elbows and watching the sunset. It was nice. Quiet. Most of the time, Blair was good company.

"Hey, isn't that the girl from downstairs?" Blair asked.

And other times, Jim would happily throw him off the balcony. Jim drank his beer and took the high road of silence, which backfired when Blair snaked Jim's keys out of his pocket and dropped them over the side. Their downstairs neighbor heard them hit the ground and turned.

Yup. Right off the balcony. "They'll never find the body, Chief."

Blair punched his shoulder and disappeared into the loft as their neighbor picked up Jim's keys and looked up. "Are these yours?" she called up.

"Uh, yeah," Jim answered.

"I'll bring them up," she said.

"No, no, I'll come down--" but she was already coming upstairs.

Jim turned, working up a good glare. "Chief..."

Blair pumped his fist in the air. "Go get her, tiger!"

"Chief!"

Blair left via the back door fire escape, which wasn't rated for regular use. Jim briefly considered chasing and citing him, but he could hear his neighbor coming up the stairs. He scrubbed his hand through his hair and went to meet her.

She was on the landing when he opened the door. She smiled a little and held up his keys. Her heart was pounding, and he guessed it wasn't entirely from walking up three flights of stairs. She was thirtyish, prettyish, tidy. "Sorry about that," Jim said.

"Well, I've been meaning to come up and say hi--I just moved in last week. I'm Isobel." She held out her hand with the keys in it, frowned and transferred them to her other hand, then looked flustered and gave him the keys.

"Jim," Jim said. "You want a beer?"

"Yeah." She sounded relieved.

"Regular or, uh--" He gestured her in and checked the bottom shelf of the fridge. "Oatmeal stout?"

"You can make beer out of oatmeal?"

"Apparently. My roommate likes his food complicated," Jim said.

Isobel tilted her head. "I like it simple," she said, and Jim handed her a regular beer.

She glanced around the loft, his bedroom, Blair's window, the couch, the fireplace, the bookshelf, piece by piece, and took a long draw of beer. Jim could feel her figuring him out in her head, like a subliminal whir. At work, she would be figuring out a lie. Here, she was probably figuring out the cut of his jib. "Leslie from the first floor said you're a cop?" she asked.

"Detective. Major crimes."

"So you chase murderers, or is that more robberies?"

"Both," Jim said.

"So if I wake up murdered, I'll just bang on the ceiling with a broom, I guess." She smiled widely and Jim laughed.

She leaned against a kitchen chair, and Jim leaned his elbow against the dividing pillar. She looked at Blair's window again and she asked: "Is that roommate as in roomie or roommate as in euphemism?"

"Euphemism," Jim said, and things got a lot more relaxed after that.

* * *

Jim was playing solitaire at the kitchen table when Blair came up the stairs. The door was unlocked, and he stepped through tentatively. "So, how did things go?" Blair asked.

Jim stood up, grabbed him, and pinned him to the wall beside the door.

"Hi," Blair said.

"Why?" Jim asked.

"Uh... she looked nice?"

Jim pressed him against the wall with his hips as well as his fists. "You're not as funny as you think you are," Jim said. Blair sighed a little.

"It's a good thing I'm cute," Blair said.

"You're sleeping downstairs tonight."

"Aww, come on!"

"You're in the doghouse, mister." Jim unclenched one fist and stroked frizz away from Blair's face. Blair turned his cheek into Jim's hand. "Why?" Jim asked.

Blair shrugged.

"Is this a test? Are you bored? Do I have to get my handcuffs to make you stop messing with me?" This wasn't the first time Blair had shoved women at him. He hadn't done it before they got involved.

Blair's eyes flickered to his face and away, his heart speeding up.

"That was a rhetorical question."

Blair slipped his thigh between Jim's.

Jim pressed his forehead to Blair's and cupped Blair's head in his hands. "You could take it on faith that I won't mess around," Jim said.

"The biological imperative," Blair started and stopped, and then he tried again with "The procreative urge," and he couldn't meet Jim's eyes when he resorted to "atypical social units," and then he took a deep breath, and another, and said, "I have no idea what I'm doing here."

"I do," Jim said before kissing him.

Blair closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around him. "Well. Good."

Later, Blair worked the crick out of Jim's neck, because he really was a keeper, no matter how hard he tried not to be. Jim let him sleep upstairs after all, and lay awake for a while, listening to Blair snore, before shutting his eyes.

THE END.

 

All comments are welcome.


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